Joe McKendrick, ebizQ's SOA in Action Blogger, is a nationally published author and consultant
with deep knowledge and insights regarding trends and developments in
the technology industry. He is a contributing editor to a number of
national and international publications and Websites including
Database Trends & Applications, ZDNet, and Webservices.Org. He also
serves as analyst for Evans Data Corp., and is lead analyst for Evans'
Web services and enterprise development management issues surveys.
SOA in Action Blog
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« Even if Your Systems Hit the Big 4-0, are They Still Ready for SOA? | Main | Cooperative SOA Reaps Rich Harvest » April 26, 2007Why Point-to-Point Integration Costs More than SOA Does your business keep expecting the same kind of ROI from SOA as they get from point-to-point integrations, even though you try to explain until you're blue in the face that SOA is anything but P2P? Join the club. Unfortunately, P2P integration is less invasive and doesn't mess with business processes, and as a result, does not bear the up-front costs that SOA may incur. Marc Rix, a senior SOA/BPM architect, has just released this white paper that discusses describes the differences between P2P and SOA-based integration, and explains why SOA ROI is vastly different from P2P ROI. SOA is uncharted territory, "so in the absence of objective SOA performance data, the industry needs a simple model that compares the distinguishing characteristics of SOA and the P2P approach on a fundamental level so that we can make more objective judgments about the fit of SOA in our enterprises," Marc says. Marc separates the economics of P2P and SOA this way: Point-to-point offers short-term savings, but long-term pain. "Point-to-point architecture carries seductively low up-front costs, resulting in little impact at the project level... However, microeconomic stability can quickly fester into macroeconomic chaos. As more and more one-off solutions are piled atop one another, IT maintenance costs swell exponentially and connection sprawl strangles the infrastructure." The costs of individual P2P connections remain constant no matter how often the process is repeated -- therefore P2P costs grow linearly, Marc points out. SOA means higher up-front expenditures but long-term savings. "Higher up-front expenditures are required in order to ensure loose coupling between linked components, which inflates project budgets. This translates into initial financial losses at the microeconomic level and often catapults projects beyond conventional thresholds of risk tolerance. However... investments in SOA at the microeconomic level can blossom into colossal benefits at the macroeconomic level. By dramatically reducing the number of physical connections in the infrastructure and leveraging no-cost, virtual connections to achieve everything-to-everything connectivity, SOA’s return on investment increases exponentially as the infrastructure grows." Unlike P2P, each physical connection in the SOA network links one node to all other nodes via virtual connections through a hub. This means that the value of the SOA network increases exponentially as its size, or number of nodes, increases, Marc relates. Thus, "the value of the SOA network is greater than the sum of its parts." A link to Marc's white paper can be found at his site here. Posted by joemckendrick in SOA | Digg This | Add to del.icio.us Trackback Pings TrackBack URL for this entry:
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